Thursday, January 03, 2013

It’s Cold Outside. Crazy to Ride?

I ride alone in the dark across the Manhattan Bridge at 7:03
AM on Monday morning, the last day of 2012.

From the frigid, commanding height it seems
as though I’m flying in a small plane above the East River rather than pedaling
my bike.The city ahead lies in shadows,
save for lights from the apartment windows of a few early risers on
a day when much of the city won’t be going to work. Below, car lights glide
northbound and south along the FDR Drive.

I imagine a driver in one of those cars, huddled in a warm
parka, pleading with the heater to heat up, his hands clutching a warm Thermos of
coffee.He leans forward to wipe
frost from the windshield, which falls in tiny snowflakes upon the dash. As the
driver looks through the windscreen he happens to see me, a tiny point on two
wheels way up high, moving slowly across the bridge.

“Is that guy freakin’ nuts?” the driver exclaims. “It’s
freezing out, and that guy’s out riding his freakin’ bike!”

“Fair question,” I’d reply.

Actually, It’s the question that I’ve been quietly asking
myself during the 20 minutes since I left home, during which I’ve seen exactly zero
other cyclists (in this city of 8 to 12 million residents).

So, in an attempt to reassure myself that I am sane, I try
to take rational stock of my situation. It’s really cold out, but I’m not cold
at all.Maybe, then, this is a
dream.

Oh, wait. I AM cold at the fringes. My nose is chilly and my
cheeks feel a little stiff when I smile. My fingertips, particularly those
of my pinky and ring fingers, are cold but not desperately so.

I feel cold at the extremities; Therefore I am (really here).

I’ve also had a good ride so far.Little traffic, no noxious clouds of
truck exhaust to endure as I rode through downtown Brooklyn. I’ve even had a tailwind and, despite the fact that my body is only now waking
up, I’ve been jammin’ a quick pace and enjoying a rare symbiotic groove with my
bicycle, carving turns and gliding over the city’s rough and potholed streets like
a mountain goat glides over boulders.

And, yes, I got up early. But the fact is one of the kids
would have gotten me up soon anyway if I hadn’t escaped from the apartment, so
no real opportunity cost there.

Now, back in the present, on the bridge, a Q train clatters
by.Inside fellow commuters sit
in somnolent trances under way-too-bright-for-this-early-in-the-morning
fluorescent bulbs. Many mornings I’m one of them.

But this morning I’m in my Cessna above the city, breathing
rare fresh air and catching the sunrise that the driver below is too
preoccupied to notice, that the catatonic subway riders likely don’t see, and for
sure won’t see once their train disappears into the city’s bowel. My legs are
feeling good and no, I’m not cold.